2024 is about a month away, and to celebrate the end of the year, Google has named the winners of Google Play’s Best of 2023 Awards.
For the sake of brevity, we will mainly focus on the best android apps as the company introduced new categories for this year such as Best with AI and Best Multi-Device App. This caused the list to grow significantly so we couldn’t include the best Chromebook or best tablet apps (if you’re curious, the winner of the best Chromebook app is FlipaClipsoftware that allows people to create 2D animation, and is the winner for best tablet app Conceptsa vector-based drawing tool).
Google states that the list on its blog is centered around the American winners. Other countries are said to have different winners. However, when we looked at other regions, the entries matched the US list, with the exception of a single outlier that we’ll call out later.
Android apps of the year
1. Imprint: Learn visually
Google has awarded the Best App of 2023 award to Imprint: Learn Visually, an education software that aims to teach you new skills and the world around you in bite-sized lessons. It offers a personalized experience where you can learn about topics that interest you, from human history to psychology. And Imprint does this through striking visual stories.
2. Spotify
Spotify earned the award for best multi-device app because it enables music streaming in different locations: in the kitchen, while commuting or around town. The company highlights the service’s ability to “remotely control playback on another device.” Moreover, you can download your favorite songs for offline listening. What’s interesting is that it is the only music streaming app on the entire list.
3. ChatGPT
Early November, Google allowed people to vote on what they thought was the best app of the year. Winning the Users’ Choice Award is ChatGPT, which isn’t surprising in our opinion. ChatGPT took the world by storm in 2023 as one of the premier generative AI platforms, whose technology powers Microsoft’s Bing Chat. Moreover, 2024 will be an important year for this topic.
4. Bumble For Friends: Get to know me IRL
If you want to make new friends or have recently moved to another city, the company recommends installing Bumble For Friends (BFF for short) on your smartphone. It differs from the regular Bumble app because it isn’t focused on helping you find dates. Instead, BFF is about helping you make real friendships, as the name suggests, with others around you
5. Voidpet Garden: Mental Health
Voidpet Garden: Mental Health won the award for best for personal growth and is quite unique. The goal is to help you practice mindfulness and self-care as a way to improve your mental health. It does this in a Pokemon-like way by letting you collect Void Pets, which are said to be creatures born from negative emotions. You raise these creatures by completing tasks and turning them into heavenly-looking dragons, with each representing a positive characteristic of the user.
6. Artifact: Feed your curiosity
Artefact: Feed Your Curiosity is similar to Imprint: Learn Visually in that it is an app that can teach users about the world, but does so in a different way. The service functions like the Explore page of X (formerly known as Twitter) by offering a curated stream of news articles from around the Internet. It covers a variety of topics such as the tech industry, politics and gaming. Users even have the option to mark certain stories as clickbait for better curation.
In Great Britain the prize went to ReciMea social platform where home cooks share their family recipes.
7. Conscious: mindfulness and well-being
Aware is another mental health app like Voidpet Garden, although this one takes a more grounded approach to mindfulness. It’s a type of diary software that houses “science-based exercises (in addition to) live guided sessions.” You don’t have to create an account and it’s completely free. No subscription required.
It’s worth noting that this has the fewest downloads of anything in this roundup, although we do expect it to grow exponentially since it won the Best Hidden Gem award.
8. Character AI: AI-powered chat
Despite winning the Users’ Choice award, ChatGPT was effectively snubbed by Google as it didn’t get the Best AI crown. That honor went to Character AI, an app full of personality-driven chatbots that you can talk to. For example, you can talk to Amelia Earhart, Julius Caesar or Poseidon, God of the Ocean. People can even talk to Whiskers the Cat.
As you can probably guess, you’re not supposed to take this seriously. It is intended to be a fun, interactive experience, almost like a video game.
9. PAW Patrol Academy
For families, Google has given the nod to the PAW Patrol Academy, an app that helps young children ages two to five learn problem-solving skills, gain self-confidence, and get in touch with their creative side. It features characters from the popular animated series in a variety of interactive adventures, as well as clips from select episodes. Plus, it doesn’t require a connection to Wi-Fi, so kids can enjoy it on the go.
10. AWorld in support of ActNow
Rounding out the list of Google’s best Android apps for 2023 is AWorld in support of ActNow. The aim is to teach people how to combat climate change by calculating their carbon footprint and learning how to change their lifestyle to reduce the impact they have on the environment. The software will recommend basic activities such as planting trees to reduce CO2 emissions or using natural products. AWorld also encourages you to participate in group challenges by completing a certain number of eco-friendly actions.
And that’s Google’s list of recommendations. If you want to know what’s top on iOS, check out Ny Breaking’s round-up of the 14 best iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch of the year – according to Apple.